Toddler, elderly woman injured in Newark shooting

A gunman opened fire on a car in Newark this afternoon, critically injuring a toddler in the vehicle and grazing an elderly woman standing one block away on a street corner, police said.

Noah K. Murray/The Star-LedgerThe unidentified driver of a silver Toyota sits on the curb as Newark Police investigate the scene of a double shooting at Orchard and Tichenor streets.

Abdul-Quadir Hutchins, 3, was shot in the forehead as he was riding in the back seat of a car on Orchard Street in the city's Ironbound section shortly before 4 p.m., police and family members said.

The boy's sister, Natasha Barnes, who is 6 months pregnant, was in the passenger seat, and her boyfriend, Shaquan Murphy, was driving.

Neither was shot, but the car crashed moments after the gunfire.

"I just held him and talked to him," Barnes said tonight, describing the moments after her brother was shot. "He gave us a kiss and said hello to my mother."

Abdul-Quadir was taken to University Hospital, where he underwent three hours of emergency surgery as doctors tried to reduce swelling from the gunshot wound.

He remained in the pediatric intensive care unit in critical condition tonight, hospital officials said. Doctors were cautiously optimistic about his condition.

Quadir Hutchins

The elderly woman was struck in the hip, treated and released from University Hospital tonight. Her identity was not released.

The double shooting was the second such incident this week in the same section of the East Ward, just blocks away from the Prudential Center arena. On Wednesday, Salaam Cruz, 17, was shot in first floor hallway of a building on Pennington Street. He died at University Hospital.
Police have made an arrest in that case.